Great Britain Bike Tour: Part 7 (Bristol, Bath, and London)

August 17, 2023

A month on our bicycles, unsupported, spanning the entire isle of Great Britain. Three countries. Five major cities. Tens of thousands of feet of incline. 800ish miles. Literally millions of sheep.

If you missed the previous post, you can find Part 6 here.

In this post, we'll cover our experiences in Bristol, Bath, London, and our journeys between those cities.

The final leg of the journey takes place mostly in cities. We didn't want to risk missing our flight or scrambling at the last minute because of a flat tire or poor distance estimation skills, so we wound up arriving in Bistol with about a week to burn before our flight. There isn't that much distance between Bristol in London, so we had ample time to explore London and revisit all my old favorite haunts in Bristol, where I studied abroad back in uni.

As is tradition with the city portions of this trip, I'll leave out the finer details and instead leave you with some recommendations and highlights of each population center.

Our Bristol favourites included:

• The Scrandit has a small but mighty beverage selection of excellent local beers and ciders, but the real secret is the food made by a rotation of local pop-up chefs. I wish this place was not thousands of miles from my home because I would come here constantly if I lived in the area. I also love the fact that you can sit downstairs at the bar, upstairs at a small table, or upstairs at a single very large community table depending on how social you want to be.

• Coffee + Beer makes great coffee and pours great beer. In the same space. They source beans from some of the best roasters in the country and clearly source their pastries from some of the tastiest bakers in the city. Again, I wish this place was not thousands of miles from my home.
• The Cloakroom Cafe made a fantastic chai latte, but the real attraction is the location. Which used to be a toilet. But a British toilet so it's not nasty, it's actually cool. I'm not entirely sure how the antique bicycle hanging from the ceiling fits in with the theme but it certainly looked cool.

• Everyman Cinema reminded me of my favourite movie theatres: Nighthawk in Brooklyn and The Lyric in Fort Collins. For those of us who don't enjoy being treated like cattle and served deeply overpriced candy, popcorn, and soda while we watch a movie. We bought a couple of tickets to watch Barbie in a very old, very beautiful theatre on a cosy sofa. The tickets and a (nice, French) bottle of wine cost less than the last movie I saw in a crappy US theatre.

• The Viet Kitchen served up the largest bao buns I have ever set eyes upon in my entire life.

• Cabot Tower is free, fun to climb, and provides an amazing 360 degree view of the city.

• I'm not really a cocktail bar kind of person but Hyde & Co turned out to be a very fun speakeasy bar. As usual, the puzzles weren't really something you could "solve" without ordering half the menu, but the vibe was really unique and the service was extremely friendly.
• Not only did Baristas Coffee Collective make me an excellent latte, they also made me one of the greatest breakfast sandwiches I have ever eaten. Halloumi, avocado, perfectly fried eggs, and what my journal describes as "sourdough like a bouncy castle, but in a good way".
• New Cut Coffee made me a latte with one of those tea-like natural proccess coffees that could convince just about anyone that "fruit notes" aren't just made-up sommelier shit. That's enough to make the list, but the real standout was their banana walnut bread with espresso butter, a pastry so good I had to order a second piece.
• Grain Barge seems like a perfectly adequate pub-with-a-schtick (and unlike The Apple, another floating pub, they actually refrigerate their cider). But as a recovering sailor, I had a fantastic time watching sailboat races in the floating harbor for an afternoon over a couple of beverages.

• Crying Wolf makes a mean piña colada thanks to homemade coconut sherbet.
• Bristol Cathedral is a millenia old, entirely free, and full of interesting historical artifacts. I could have spent much more time here.

The local burrito was adequate, but I am disappointed to report that the local arcade bar altogether lacks charm. But Burlington, Vermont; Rochester, New York; Denver, Colorado; and Portland, Maine have set the bar really high for arcade bars. I also tried Wok to Walk, which turned out much better than I expected (but probably about as decent as you're imagining).

Before we knew it, our time was up in Bristol. We headed to Bath along the rail trail, whose antiquated website promises the following:

Each megabyte of a document will take around 1min 30secs to download on a 56kbps modem. For example, a 2MB file will take around 3mins to download on a 56kbps modem. For broadband users, downloads will take considerably less time.

Thoughtful and true. Thanks, Bristol & Bath railway path!

The rail trail turned out to be a very easy ride, full of runners, walkers, incredibly well-trained leashless dogs, and cyclists. But manners were generally very good, and instead of being annoying it turned out to be quite pleasant. The city thinned out, the luxury condos grew further and further apart, and before long we passed through the 0.3 mile Staple Hill Tunnel (which, despite online assurances, is not particularly well lit) and escaped into true countryside, surrounded by trees, cows, and fields.

After a brief navigation debate (fortunately, only a couple of cow gates and a public right-of-way separate the rail trail from The Bath Soft Cheese Co), we enjoyed for a high quality blue cheese toasty, my favorite rarebit of the trip, and a fresh-outta-the-cow chocolate milkshake. The milking parlor and cheese room are mostly for kids, but it was genuinely very cool to watch someone separate cheese curds.

We returned to the railway path, but it wasn't long before we reached Bath. So we stopped at Electric Bear Brewing to pad the day out a bit. And before we knew it, we were in Bath. We walked around, checked out historic buildings, parks, snacked on some local food and drink, and prepared for London. Bath is full of neat buildings, but when you measure it up to thriving cities like Bristol and London, it's a bit touristy.

The next morning, we got up, headed to the train station, and boarded a train to London. Unfortunately, despite making a bike reservation, the bike spaces were occupied. So we loitered in the handicap zone of the train with our bikes until the jerks who didn't have reservations left the train. Not the most fun way to travel, but better than riding through shoddy suburban bike infrastructure. And we had some lovely chat with other folks on the train.

Before long, we were at the end destination of our trip: London. But we weren't done biking. For our first night in the city, we planned to stay far north of the city centre -- near Tottenham. So we enjoyed a quick cheesy snack in Hyde Park, then embarked on our Great London Bike Ride, which took us past all of the big touristy things without fighting our way through massive crowds.

We cruised past Buckingham Palace, to Parliament, past Big Ben, along the Thames across from the London Eye, over to the City of London, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. And that's just the old stuff. The bike infrastructure was incredible: that entire ride only required us to stop a single time, and make one or two turns. The bike lane was fully separated from both vehicle traffic and the sidewalk, and it was painted blue and well marked to make it obvious for folks who haven't biked it before.

After checking out the usual tourist attractions at a much more reasonable speed, we headed north towards Tottenham, up through Hackney. It wasn't long before we were out of the hustle and bustle of the city centre, casually riding along a canal through a residential neighborhood. And that's where Meg got her first flat of the ride thanks to a giant nail in the path.

Fortunately, we were extremely prepared, and fixed it in three minutes flat with one of several spare tubes and the bike pump I lugged in a pannier for the entire trip. The rest of our journey went smoothly, so we dropped our bikes off at the hotel and explored the neighborhood.

Most of our time in London was spent in and around Hackney, the Brooklyn of London. Special thanks to my friend Dan for hanging out with us for a few days of London shenanigans.

I won't bother recommending much in the city centre, but I think a lot of visitors overlook Hackey, so I wanted to highlight some places that are a little further off the beaten path (and some staples that I think are actually worthwhile):

• Balfe's Bikes supplied us with a couple of bike boxes to bring our bikes home -- THANK YOU!

• Bike Maniac is exactly the hero we needed when my multitool and arms did not provide enough torque to remove our pedals (an essential part of packing your bike up into a box). 10/10 pedal wrench loan, and a very cool guy in general.

• We wandered into the Museum of the Home and wound up pleasantly surprised by their selection of living rooms through the ages.
• Weino BIB provided great wine, great olives, and a chill place to hang out.
• The second level of every double decker bus in London (except the shitty tourist ones) turned out to be a great way to get around. On the second level, you can almost trick yourself that you're on a competent mode of public transportation (a train).
• Table 13 made great coffee. I wish we'd found them during their wine shop and dinner hours.

• Mikos Gyros makes for excellent guilty pleasure Greek street food.

• The National Gallery, like many state-run museums in London, is free. You'll recognize a lot of paintings. The building itself is gorgeous. If I had to visit just one museum in London, it would be this one. (yes, this is a subtle dig at Tate because I can't bear to look at modern art for more than 10 minutes at a stretch)
• We stumbled upon Violet Cakes when I carried our bike boxes a couple of miles around london. Solid coffee, better baked goods.
• Hackney Church Brew Co makes good beer under a train line. Though I don't recommend ordering food here; we went on a not-that-busy night and it took them almost 2 hours to bring us our orders.
• Batch Baby made a high quality toasty in a 60s retro setting. Excellent place to finish a book series and watch the neighborhood wake up.
• e5 bakehouse makes exquisite bread and top-tier coffee.
• My Neighbors the Dumplings, despite the strange name, made the best dim sum I've ever had. Though admittedly I have not had that much dim sum. But Meg has had a lot more and she thought it was high quality, too.

• Victoria Park is gorgeous. It's a park.

• The Dusty Knuckle became a breakfast staple thanks to their signature feta honey fennel bun. All of their baked goods were extremely good -- except for the toast, which was unevenly toasted. Relieving to discover that they're not good at everything because goddamn was that feta honey fennel bun delicious.

Our final day arrived all too soon. We considered taking the tube with our bike boxes, but the trip from Hackney to Heathrow required a couple of transfers and nothing is simple when a couple of 50lb bike boxes are involved. So we booked a van (whose driver only stole some of our money when he didn't make change) and revelled in the shame of private internal combustion engine transportation to the airport. Next time I will take public transport.

But this isn't the end of my GB Bike tour blog series. In Part 8, I'll reflect on what went right (and what went wrong!) across the entire journey. And I'll leave you with some hopes and dreams for what Meg and I might do next.